You owe me
by ChestOfStories
Summary: Caroline pays a late night visit to the boardinghouse. / Placed in the beginning of season 3. (Written by @DeSangue)


It seemed things were getting more complicated by every hour after Elena's birthday party. Sometimes Damon couldn't decipher his own feelings anymore and spent long night hours in a drunken stupor just to find some resemblance of peace. Endless leads and news articles and Internet researches gradually drove him to the edge, and he couldn't stop that buzz in his head. A few evenings at the Grill with Alaric helped while Damon was there and retracted their effect once he was in his car driving home. Ric wasn't any better, torn between his work, Elena and Damon. His worry about Damon's sanity irked Damon to no end, but Ric couldn't stop with the assessing glances here and there whenever they discussed their search with him and Elena. Alaric never said it but Damon knew he was thinking that, without Andie to keep him grounded, Damon Salvatore was unstable like a ticking nuke in a heating stove. He wasn't wrong, Damon reflected after every other failure trip in their crusade. And, despite how Damon hated to admit it or even think about it, he did miss her.

The crackling of fire soothed as Damon sat on the couch trying to ward off the thoughts of the new lead they had discussed with Elena and Ric earlier, his shirt unbuttoned but still on because he was lazy. He was sipping brandy and observing the carpet. The lights were too damn bright, but he couldn't be bothered to get up and turn them off.  
Caroline let herself into the boardinghouse without a knock, and even if he were to ignore the smell, there was a hint of staggering in the way she walked to testify she had been drinking. She gave him a once over; her gaze slipped down from his face to his torso exposed between the flaps of the unbuttoned shirt, flicked to the two-thirds-empty bottle of brandy on his lap. The familiar cold disdain sparkled in her eye.

"Where's Elena?"

"Left with Ric two hours ago. It's late, you know." He took a swig and rested the bottle back against his thigh. She didn't look disappointed. More so, she looked restless and haunted. Moody, like Stefan after any of Damon's pranks. She dropped her bag into a chair on her way towards the table, skimmed through the decanters, picked one and poured herself a drink. Damon read defiance in her every move and found himself intrigued. "You don't need any additional excuse not to drive, little Forbes. You can't as it is." He gave a jibing smirk.

She snorted and downed her shot, winced. "As if you could advise me on drinking."

"I think I'll leave that to your boyfriend."

Caroline's face darkened, she refilled her glass and swirled the liquor in it, observing for a moment before lilting it out. "He's not my boyfriend," she spat in a low voice, as though to herself. So, the lovebirds had another fight. The Lockwood pup had little appreciation for collars and leashes.

Damon rolled his eyes and took a gulp, then screwed the cap on the bottle. "Spare me your facebook status. We both know it changes ten times a day."

Her heartbeat spiked up, and he looked at her, his eyebrows raising. She glared back furiously, her fingertips white on the glass. Her voice oozed poison as she spoke. "What do you know about it, Damon? What do you know about love and feelings?" She thrust every word out as though it swelled with hatred she could no longer carry inside. It dawned on him, it didn't fit inside of her anymore. "You don't even love your own brother. How does it feel to be finally alone in the picture? Pity Ric's always around, or you'd have jumped her bones already."

Gritting his teeth, Damon felt his anger almost swelled enough to spill over hers when the glass burst in her hand like an egg in a microwave. She let out a startled cry and shook her hand, blood dripping. Some drops landed in the fireplace with a brief hiss. She cursed, wiped it on a cloth from the table and returned her glower to his face, even more wrath etched into her features like the glass was one of his endless faults.

His chest felt too tight and burning with how unfair and how close to truth her accusations were. Viperous retorts crowded behind his teeth eager to bust out. Damon set his jaw and said, "You should leave."

"Oh I'll leave," she said. But when she picked up her bag and reached the doorway, she spun around, her eyes blazing like two lasers piercing through his head. "After you tell me."

A tired, irritated grimace crossed his face. "What?"

She folded her arms and stepped back towards him, holding his eyes with hers. "Would you have killed me? If it weren't for Stefan and Elena – would you?"

Damon scowled and recollected the scene at the carnival. He was going to stake her, and opened his mouth to tell her he would have, but then realized it wasn't what she meant. It all went back to her human life she couldn't leave behind. With an irritated sigh, he reached out and put the bottle on the table, considered lying to spare himself another minute of watching her pout or – god forbid – weep. But the words she threw in his face earlier made him tell her he would have.

She scrutinized him for a long moment, searching his face for signs of lies. When she found none, rage flared in her glower, dark veins snaked under her eyes, and she lunged at him.

Damon didn't expect her to dare attack, and found himself on the floor with her on top. She straddled him, her hands squeezing the air from his throat, pure, fiery hatred on her snarling face. "I wish I had a stake!" she growled. "You should've died from that bite, you bastard!"

Damon felt an icy grasp of rage around his heart. "What now?" he asked, an evil, daring sneer creasing his mouth. "You'll claw my heart out?"

She stilled, as though building up more hate inside to pour it all out and drown him in it, then suddenly yanked his head to the side by the hair and tucked into his jugular like a rabid beast. He gasped as the acute throe flooded his neck, shoulder and leaked into his chest, and discovered he couldn't fight her. He was startled and thrown out of the rage that was choking him an instant ago. The shock of physical pain morphed into an emotional storm that shot between them like an uncontrolled lightning. Suddenly he felt his muscles unroll like strained springs and relax in the warmth filling them. The pain dissolved in that warmth, and there was stillness. A small eternity filled with quick ta-dam-ta-dam of her heart.

When she pulled away and hovered over him, she was weak and shaking, propping her palms flat on his chest not to topple off. Damon's heart barely beat, he could doze any second, and yet he was hard beneath her. There was a thin ring of blue around her dilated pupils. She seemed utterly crazy like that with blood around her mouth and dripping from her chin. Stoned-slow, she noticed his arousal and became self-conscious about her own. She tried to talk. "Wha- … what…"

He blinked slowly, finding it ironic that it had to be him to teach her about blood sharing. "The link," he said.

No more questions formed in her dazed mind, and she wore a look of desperate confusion of a person completely lost. She looked terribly young, terribly fragile. As they stared at each other, oblivious of the passing time, something happened in her. Damon didn't know how, but Caroline started to get the picture. It was more on a level of instinct, something she would never be able to put into words, but it was there, and she grasped it, probed it. Carefully, unsure of what she was doing, she shifted on his waist and glided a hand to grip his throat again. She regarded him as though having noticed things she never saw before or never took a moment to notice. "You…" she searched for a better word, "… owe me."

He knew. Before his mind wrapped itself around it, there was a deeper knowing of what she meant. He smiled wryly, "Then collect."

She pulled his shirt up, wrapped it tightly around his wrists and tied the loose end to the leg of the couch they lay beside. She ripped a strap of its material and blindfolded him. Every nerve in his body felt naked, exposed and tingling with electricity, while every muscle was still utterly relaxed.

She was tentative at first, then her touches gained more confidence. Shivers started to ripple through his body in response, and she seemed to have absorbed it to feed her security. She stroked, nipped, scratched, tuning more into him as he was into her. She sensed what buttons to press, and soon Damon started writhing. She was more forceful, demanding. Her fangs opened up his skin, drawing blood and his hisses as the pain deliciously interlaced with pleasure she was giving in small, tempting shares.

It went on for ages. It wasn't about sex or her taking all the pain and suffering he'd inflicted out on him while he chose not to fight whatever was to come. It was about her peeking into the side Damon never showed, about picking the pieces she needed to restore the ones he damaged in her. It was about her taking her power back. _'You owe me.'_

In the same space without words and thoughts, Damon realized it wasn't about her, either. It was as much about both of them finding a release from tension and struggle they went through every day, each in their own. It was the one moment in months when he could finally let the heavy guarding walls crumble around him.

She slept with her head on his shoulder under the covers they pulled off the couch. Her face calm, a small smile on her lips. For the first time, Damon wondered if she had ever gotten a decent sleep since she remembered him. Or if all her problems with Tyler grew from what he did to her. He still had no remorse – if he wanted it, he would not know where to start. But for the first time, he understood the world of Caroline Forbes the newborn vampire.

For a while, he idly watched the flickers of the flames in the fireplace dance across the ceiling and enjoyed the silence of his mind, the relaxed warmth in his body, the quiet heartbeat of the one clinging to him. Then he slept.

She came downstairs from the shower, refreshed and looking serious. Damon put a mug of coffee in front of her, she took it with a nod. Then she peered at him, stern but somehow sheepish. "Don't you tell anyone."

He barked a laugh. "Tell what? That you bit me into submission? That's a never-happened fairy tale." He took a sip of his coffee and, from the corner of his eye, saw a small smile blink on her lips before they touched the rim of her mug. He bit his tongue before expressing how uncalled for any smugness was, and stood by the window until she finished her coffee and went out the door without goodbye or thank you he didn't want to hear.

Some debts belong to the secret boxes we keep locked away at all times where they collect dust and become myths and history.


End file.
